Sacrifice
by Wends
Summary: Fill for the Strifehart Kink Meme.  Someone important is missing - why can no one remember him?
1. Missing

Originally posted on Livejournal for the Strifehart Kink Meme. And now for some mandatory disclaimer stuff:

Disclaimer: I in no way own the Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts franchises. All I own is spiffy stuff I buy and the Squall plushie I snuggle with regularity. And I certainly don't own any works by Evanescence, especially not the song 'Missing' that played on my playlist and encouraged me to try my hand at filling this prompt. Don't sue; I'm simply an E-6 in the USN, and therefore have no money. Ha.

Prompt: Set after KHII. Something weird is happening to Cloud and his friends... After Leon finally rebuilt Radiant Garden he disappears. Cloud is desparate to find his lover, but as time goes on he starts forgetting Leon. Leon actually never really disappeared. Sephiroth got a hold of him (who revived ONCE AGAIN) and shows him Cloud... Cloud, Tifa, Yuffie, Aerith, Sora and Cid desperately try to find Leon before they forget him completely but it doesn't work. The last thing they see before they forget him completely is a broken Leon who calls for Cloud. Months go by and no one remembers the man who did so much for them. But then one day Cloud comes across his and Leon's old home. He sees pictures of him and Leon. But who is Leon? Slowly he gets his memories back. But can he save Leon in time before he really disappears?

Bonus points for angst, happy ending. And if the song 'Missing' by Evanescence comes in to the story.

Prelude  
><span>Missing<span>

His feet stirred the dust.

Head hanging, hair brushing over clammy skin and shielding gunmetal eyes from the world, the thin and haggard figure continued his drifting shuffle to an undetermined destination. Hands, long since fallen limp and cool despite the leather casings that gripped them, brushed lightly over the long silver zippers that raced up legs that tiredly kept their unending rhythm going despite any motivation to continue the seemingly endless journey they perpetuated having long since fled the heart of the individual they carried.

The gray clouds that made up the sky swirled slowly, swallowing the scant sound of thick heavy boot soles scraping over gravelly ground and stirring long settled dirt.

The eternal staggering finally came to an end. There was no longer an available imagined path to walk.

The abysmal depths of emptiness whirled below the small overhang the leather-clad man was standing upon, inviting yet frighteningly hallow.

Soulless eyes finally lifted their gaze from the ground, staring out into the nothing that dominated their reality.

Seconds had ceased to exist. Minutes hadn't ticked by in any recent memory. Hours had been swallowed by oblivion. Time itself had finally come to an end.

Numb fingers clenched empty air, their strength long decayed. A dead atmosphere weighing upon the thin figure instilled its chill into flesh covered in thin leather and thick jacket, sending bumps of cold racing over bare arms and under belts strapped to a forearm.

Blinking once, the man who occupied the sullen, empty wasteland finally let himself sag to the ground, his strength finally completely gone. Looking to the nonexistent heavens, he let a deep sigh seep from his lungs.

There would be no white feather this time.

No one was looking for him.

Lying back in the dust, not having the compulsion to care that it was coloring his black jacket and pants gray with its fine particles, the man let his empty eyes drift shut.

They had won.

Past darkness. Future threat. Bending space and time themselves, joining to eradicate the nemesis of one and the interference standing between a desire and the destined obtainer of that desire for the other. A dark one-winged beast, crawled from the darkness of a tainted heart, had segregated the weakest link in the culmination of light-drenched hearts - that oddly-limbed monster with his long silver hair and long silver sword pried loose the one peg that didn't fit nicely in the puzzle, approaching him when he was away from the rest of the pieces. A silver-haired witch with black-feathered angel's wings had gathered the one separated and thrown time itself into a wild array around that displaced being, forcing him into a phantasmal existence passing between time and space and reality itself.

Ages ago he had cried for help, his blade having been left at his abode and his hand having thrown the spade he'd been using for spackling the final repair in his life's work. He'd reached vainly for a nearby companion, crying his name.

And time had vanished.

His imagination, tired and dying like the rest of him, had long since ceased in its hoping for salvation, for someone to figure out where or when he'd gone or who could locate him. His dreams had gone unrealized and his prayers unanswered for more lifetimes than he could fathom.

He'd been missing since the beginning of time itself, erased from the terminal future of reality, stripped from every present.

As black feathers whirled into existence above him, his heart refused to stir - he knew what was coming.

A glimpse of the ones he considered friends, a fleeting glance at the ones who had once captured his heart. A vision of the town he claimed as a home, a sighting of the Keyblade and its bearer in that serene villa.

Why the visions continued, he couldn't comprehend. Perhaps this was a part of the loop of time he was trapped in, a residual smear of energy that had been errantly thrust into the warp of existence and had yet to completely dissipate.

Its initial purpose, to eradicate his will to truly live, to break his heart and his soul, had been accomplished long ago.

He'd already watched everyone cease their searches for him. He'd already watched the memorials fade into obscurity. He'd already witnessed the death of any caring anyone may have once held for him pass.

Without fail, the feathers formed a rift in the gray clouds above, parting the nothingness and presenting a clear window through time.

He looked without hope or happiness down upon the simple room and its one inhabitant, his window to that particular reality an angel's view upon a common denizen of a world.

Once upon a time, he may have screamed names, lunging for the visions that taunted him from unreachable distances. In the nearly forgotten past, he may have softly whispered pleas for forgiveness. He may have uttered the realization that he wouldn't be returning - the one-winged beast who'd so deftly segregated him from his ill-fitted fold, delivering him to the one who held him in more contempt than any other being in all of time and space, had seen to that reality.

Though his heart lay still within his breast, his mouth still uttered the words without any compulsion and hardly any breath. "Please, please forgive me... but I won't be home again."

He watched, his eyes empty and haunted as he saw the one in that clear window to some time, some reality he could no longer be a part of, look up towards him. And as Cloud Strife's lips moved, his soft voice directed to no one and whispering "Isn't something missing?" the lost man's cheeks were finally touched by tears.

_-to be continued-_


	2. Forget

Disclaimer: I don't own the FFVIII, FFVII or KH franchises. Dur hur hur.

Chapter 1  
><span>Forget<span>

_-BEGIN FIC-_

His feet scraped the ground.

Hope, once so foreign to his heart and so recently restored to him, was once again becoming a fleeting, hopelessly effervescent sensation.

He'd been searching for so long. His search always ended in fruitless despondence.

Once upon a time, he had shared his life and his hopes with the one for whom he now searched, a life he would have sacrificed for nothing. A life he was willing to put on hold only for the one he looked for, a life he held at bay only to allow the other to finish his life's work.

But once that other had finished his tasking, once Radiant Garden had been restored, he had vanished.

Cloud had waited that night for Leon to return. The next night had been a repeat of the first. The night following had seen the crest of anger that buried fear.

After a week had passed without a single sighting of Leon in the realm of Radiant Garden, Cloud had felt emptiness begin to fill him. All encompassing, that emptiness ate away at any tears or worries he might have had.

Instead of letting himself dwell in sadness, Cloud instead turned his focus on searching.

Every day, he wandered the same paths. Looked in the same places. Visited the same locals he and Leon always frequented, waiting for some ghostly flicker of the man he was looking for to flash into existence.

While he was never rewarded with what he sought, he took comfort in the fact that he was doing something rather than sitting idle.

Soon he was joined in his hunt – his friends had begun to feel as if something was missing from their lives; a presence that had always been there, that had always bolstered and supported them, had faded away without their notice or knowledge. Together they searched, day in and day out.

The results were always the same. The one they searched for never surfaced.

Memorials were made, offerings presented to the spirits of the afterlife. Cloud found the entire practice distasteful – somewhere deep within his heart, he knew the one he sought wasn't eternally passed, but simply missing. And while the others found their resolve to search fading, he redoubled his own efforts.

One day, the Keyblade's wielder arrived. He immediately joined the search – while his remembrances of Leon were scant at best, time's march and whatever strange phenomena had gripped them all to strip the memory of their dear friend away, his heart resonated with Cloud's own with its steadfast resolve to locate their missing companion.

As weeks dissolved into months, memories of the one who'd so claimed his life fading into obscurity, Cloud redoubled his efforts. And in his desperation, he finally found one he was looking for.

The silver-haired SOLDIER had smiled at Cloud gently, his perch upon the edge of the Crystal Fissure's impressive cliff apparently too great a comfort for him to bother and rise to face his adversary.

"Have you found what you seek, Cloud?" he'd softly questioned, his voice smooth and calm upon the gentle winds that blew past them both.

When Cloud offered him nothing but silence, instead presenting his sword and taking a step forward, the man who was his eternal adversary finally saw fit to rise and face him.

Even as every companion Cloud held in the present reality charged to his side, determination flooding them all, Sephiroth chuckled softly. "There is no need for this, Cloud. This battle is unnecessary. The sacrifice for peace has been accepted."

"Sacrifice for peace?" Cloud quietly questioned before rage filled him. "There is no sacrifice! There is nothing that you can claim, Sephiroth. This battle is between you and me, and no other!"

A silken, velvet laugh shook the tall man before Cloud, even as emerald eyes narrowed coolly. "You would shirk the sacrifice of others then? You would reinstitute the battle the one I've claimed gave existence to see terminated? Are you so desperate to become one with your darkness, Cloud?"

Narrowing his eyes, Cloud felt his heart harden as realization came to him.

This is what he was seeking.

The opportunity to fight for his continued existence in the realm of Light. To deny the one who held his hatred his opportunity for victory.

"Sephiroth…" he whispered harshly, "you're going down."

The man with his green cats' eyes chuckled and conjured his long, thin blade. "Know it is only your resolve that results in this battle. I will uphold my end of the bargain."

"Bargain?" Cloud questioned, eyes narrowed as he tightened his grip on his weapon.

"Yes, bargain. A promise that has given me eternity. Let us honor the sacrifice you and your comrades have forgotten. Let us battle and shirk the peace the insignificant sacrifice so longed for.

"Let us dance."

_-to be continued-_


	3. Alone

Disclaimer: I don't own the FFVIII, FFVII or KH franchises. Dur hur hur.

Chapter 2  
><span>Alone<span>

_-BEGIN FIC-_

His feet stirred the dust.

He was running towards an unknown destination, his gaze desperate and searching.

He wasn't about to stand still, to quietly accept what he had been forced to resign himself to.

When presented with the options of either watching all he knew, everyone he cared for, the one he'd grown to love fall to darkness or to give himself for the sake of their peace, he'd made his decision without hesitation.

Expecting death, he had been surprised to be ensnared by a whirl of magic that felt horribly familiar, wrenched from the reality he knew.

Laughter, soft and haunting, floated through the ethereal gray that swirled around him, encasing him in cold emptiness. Gritting his teeth, he redoubled his efforts, picking up his pace as he ran for freedom, escape, anything.

"You can not run," the sultry voice he'd not heard since his formative teenage years whispered, mocking and amused.

He screeched to a halt.

The ground had suddenly vanished from before him.

Staggering backwards a step, arms spread to maintain his balance, he stared at the whirling, vast abysmal pit of nothing that spread below him, above him, around him.

It was familiar…

Beyond familiar.

"Ultimecia!" he screamed into the emptiness around him. "Show yourself! Fight me if you must!"

His voice reflected back to his ears, a resounding echo in the midst of nothing.

A shudder shook his shoulders even as black feathers swirled before him.

A rift, torn through the gray clouds before him, shimmered and shined.

Reaching for it, black leather-clad fingers brushed over that rift as smoothly as they would have caressed a pane of glass.

The people on the other side of that rift were far beyond his reach.

The silver-haired demon that had cornered him, weaponless and alone, at the quarry.

The blond he shared his home and heart with, armed and demanding to know where he was.

The slight girl in her shorts, the woman with her raven hair, the beauty with her pink ribbon and braid, the grizzled elder man with his stick firm in his teeth.

The boy with his Keyblade, standing at the blond's side and snarling a request for answers.

The lost man cringed to hear the magnificent monster chuckle, its voice as smooth as velvet as it professed that this battle was unnecessary, that the sacrifice for peace had already been claimed.

The blond roared that there was no other sacrifice. That no one else could be sacrificed in his place.

That everything was strictly between him and the silver-haired beast, and everyone else needed to stay out of it.

"He won't accept that you're his sacrifice."

A beat of his heart thundered in the emptiness.

"If he were to shirk his darkness, he could free you from timelessness."

A quake within that heart shook slivers of hope from it.

"If he battles against his darkness without the resolve to truly defeat it, he will fade into that darkness, never to return."

With a scowl, the lost man turned, staring in the heavens that stretched eternally behind him. "He has that resolve."

"No. Look upon the heart of the one who could free you. What light exists without you there?"

A quiver of sad realization stirred in the man as he looked back through that rift, his hands resting upon impossibly cold, impossibly smooth and nonexistent glass.

"To battle and lose what light he believes he has for his own, or to shirk that which his heart accepts as its true nature and deny the reality of his own darkness' grip on his soul. Perhaps turning away from both light and darkness to accept the peace you've presented for him and his friends. Will he fight and allow himself to be destroyed for the sake of a sacrifice he won't accept? Would he die for your love as you would die for the hope of receiving his?"

"Cloud," he weakly called.

"Which will he choose?"

_-to be continued-_


	4. Forgive

Disclaimer: I don't own the FFVIII, FFVII or KH franchises. Dur hur hur.

Chapter 3  
><span>Forgive<span>

_-BEGIN FIC-_

His feet scraped the ground.

He was beaten and battered, to be certain, but some part of his heart was uplifted. He had survived another day. He had been victorious, even if it was only for the evening.

He had earned another day in the realm of Light.

While the battle itself had been long and arduous, the professions the one-winged angel had made about 'sacrifice' and 'memory' striking surprisingly deeply, while the sudden appearance of an apparition calling for him still shook him to the core, Cloud was ultimately happy.

His steps light and carefree as they'd not been in ages, he made his way into the depths of Radiant Garden's main town, having bid his friends goodnight after they all finished assisting him in patching his modest assortment of wounds.

Sora and the gang had helped him in the task of banishing Sephiroth once more.

And while the one-winged angel had laughed softly, his words of return a promise rather than empty profession on the evening wind, the departure of his presence still brought them enough sanctity to see them smile and celebrate.

Cloud's walk slowed as he entered the residential area of town.

The apparition that had appeared….

No one could remember what it was that had shown itself to them after the battle had ended.

It had been as if that moment in time had ceased to exist, and had taken with it… something.

Something deep within all of them.

Shaking his head ruefully, Cloud focused once more on the path he was walking. He didn't take more than one step forward, however.

To have done so would have put his face directly into a door.

Frowning, he stared at the modest house he was before.

"This isn't Merlin's place… or anyone else's, for that matter. Why am I here?" he quietly pondered.

He'd intended to return home – to the place Aerith and Tifa shared, where they'd volunteered to provide him with a cot and hot meals.

Something within him stirred as he stared at the abandoned home before him, weeds starting to overtake its lawn.

Turning on his heel, he walked away, his head bowed and his eyes narrowed as confusion overtook him.

Why did he feel such an attachment to that building?

What had happened?

What had Sephiroth's words meant when he'd mentioned 'sacrifice'?

Who had given themselves over to ensure some facsimile of peace, disregarding the necessity for Cloud and Sephiroth to face off time and time again and continue the clash between imprisoning darkness and the hope of freedom?

Who was the phantom that had called for Cloud at the termination of their battle, the one who's face Cloud couldn't recall even now?

Who was missing?

_-to be continued-_


	5. Try

Disclaimer: I don't own the FFVIII, FFVII or KH franchises. Dur hur hur.

Chapter 4  
><span>Try<span>

_-BEGIN FIC-_

His feet stirred the dust.

The battle had been long and fierce, the Keyblade's master assisting the blond in pushing the silver-haired beast back. Still, the monster had not been demolished. Why he'd survived was beyond the lost man's understanding.

All he understood was that the soft laughter that had enveloped him while he'd watched the battle had slithered through his body, caressing his heart with fear and loathing and loneliness.

His friends had strived marvelously against their foe, only to earn that foe's mocking chuckle and profession that with the light stripped from the blond's heart, he would never perish.

When Cloud had scowled, snarling that there was no light to be stripped, everyone had turned and gasped. Tifa had lunged forward, her hand outstretched, reaching.

She'd been reaching for the lost man, the rift that separated them finally transparent to both worlds.

Then the rift had vanished just as suddenly as it had appeared, cutting off the lost man's cry for his blond companion in mid-breath.

He had long sat at that location, staring into the nothing that swirled before him and below him, his feet dangling over the edge of the cliff that oversaw the abyss of time and space.

How much time he'd wasted, how many tears he'd shed, were lost into the sands of time itself. Once his heart had emptied itself of sorrow and his eyes were freed from sadness, he'd risen from his seat and begun to wander.

The memory of the black beast with his long silver hair, his long sword held with proficiency and familiarity to the lost man's throat, haunted him as he wandered through the unending emptiness.

"I will never fade. I will never be defeated. So long as his darkness exists, so too shall I. But I shall craft a bargain with you – the puppet will be left in peace in exchange for your sacrifice."

When he had scoffed, a simple spade in his hand hardly posing any threat but his mercenary nature refusing to allow him to back away from the threat, the monster had smiled, his expression sweet and gentle and nauseating to the one who received it.

"You would be his sacrifice. You would bring peace to this world. Or you would bring strife and misery to this world as I become its harbinger."

When the focus of the monster's promises had snarled that in death he would not be obligated to uphold his promises, the beast had chuckled softly, the tip of the sword lowering as he relaxed his battle-hardened stance.

"You may monitor. I will hold true to my words – you can rest assured of such."

"And why would you be willing to do this? What's in it for you?" he finally asked, gunmetal eyes narrowed and cool.

With a sly smile, the beast had held a hand out to the man, palm up and inviting. "Life."

"You would leave Radiant Garden in peace? You would leave Cloud be?"

"The only confrontation between myself and the puppet would result from his desire to face me," the monster promised quietly. "I will let peace envelop this land and allow the puppet to move without its strings pulled."

And so he had given himself, his spade dropped as his head lowered – the magic that whirled around him, accompanied by the soft feminine laughter of a long-defeated foe, had caused panic to surge within his frame.

But it was far too late to fight back. His decision had been made – his enemies had ensured it would be made reality.

As he strode without purpose or vigor over the eternal landscape, black feathers followed him. A rift here, a vision there, a glimpse into the world he'd been encouraged to abandon.

His companions had ceased their searching for him after that day. Before they had located the monster that had demanded his sacrifice for their peace, they had verily turned every stone and peered in every nook that the land of Radiant Garden held. Panic had wafted through all, driving them through months of fruitless searching. But once they'd seen him, once the rift had closed, he had been shucked from their minds.

He watched through those rifts, once again invisible to the world that still existed in time's embrace, as Tifa wondered who owned the funny-looking weapon that was both a gun and a sword before conferring with her friends, the inquiry of who owned it being met with confusion and a consensus to simply sell it. He watched as Yuffie stopped praying before the small shrine she'd set up to honor him, deciding that the incense she burned within it would be best utilized to freshen Merlin's living quarters and the black ribbon that draped the picture of a man she no longer remembered would be best utilized in her hair.

He watched as Cid stared at the computer program that ran his anti-Heartless patrol, wondering just when he'd had the stroke of genius to write it as it was, pondering just how to tweak something he could no longer remember generating to make it even more effective and not realizing for even a passing moment that the coding he was playing with had been generated by other hands. He watched as Aerith no longer found mist in her eyes as she wandered the area of the vast Library he used to frequent, never again brushing her fingertips over books that were well worn from his continual reading of their pages.

He watched as Sora finally left Radiant Garden, his cheer having been slow to return but returning all the same. The Keyblade's wielder had simply professed that there was nothing wrong in the world, and he was going to see where else he could possibly be needed. The boy had been hugged and enveloped by everyone's light, proclamations that he would never be forgotten true and steadfast and worming their way into the lost man's heart, stirring jealously and pain.

He watched as Cloud's search revolved not around him but around the silver-haired monster that had stolen him away, the motive not his missing companion but the destruction of one who had always haunted his heart. It was not a shirking of darkness that drove him – it was a resolve to either prolong the battle for yet another day or lose himself to darkness completely.

Whatever love Cloud may have shown in those bygone days when he'd been searching for the lost man had faded with time. The man who watched from beyond the world felt his heart cry, the willingness to fade into obscurity just for a glimpse into the heart of his companion to search for any shred of love or devotion to him nearly overwhelming.

As the realization that the empty loneliness of nothingness would be his eternal reality, the man stared blankly at the sky. "I'm all alone," he quietly whispered, the nothingness around him sucking his words away effortlessly.

"Isn't someone missing me?"

_-to be continued-_


	6. Bleed

Disclaimer: I don't own the FFVIII, FFVII or KH franchises. Dur hur hur.

Chapter 5  
><span>Bleed<span>

_-BEGIN FIC-_

His feet scraped the ground.

It had been a month.

Cloud wandered the streets of Radiant Garden, his eyes narrowed as he peered into darkened corners and down alleys. As always, he was out looking, the faded niggling suspicion of lacking eating at the edge of his brain. An old desperation, akin to a wound that never properly healed, urged him out that afternoon as it had every afternoon for the last thirty days.

He couldn't truly remember why he was doing what he was doing. It was simply a base urge, almost instinctual.

Pausing, his hands finding a comfortable rest with his thumbs hooked into his belt, Cloud stared ponderously at his feet.

If he ever saw what it was he was searching for, would he even realize that it was the object of his desire? Would he remember what it was he had been searching so desperately, despite time having sifted his memories of that objective away from his mind?

He simply couldn't get over the feeling that something was missing from his life. Every night he dreamed, his visions of a shadow of a person he didn't recognize and couldn't know. A person faded into the obscurity of time, whose face he could never see but for whom his heart thundered and cried. His heart would bleed its longing and need for that figure – it would never turn towards him, uncaringly staring into the distance and never showing Cloud its face, leaving him to wake without that figure at his side. Indeed, he would wake without it anywhere in his waking world.

A hallucination? A desire of his heart brought into his dreams, an imagining that was never real?

Or something he was missing? Something he had once had and summarily lost?

The others he surrounded himself with, the people he claimed as his friends, had all assured him that everything was as it had always been. No one else felt the same empty sensation he did, confident in their assertions that all was right in the world. In fact, they professed that things were better in the world than they ever had been before – Sephiroth had all but made himself scarce after the battle they'd participated in a bare month ago, whispers of his presence oddly lacking.

That in of itself didn't disturb Cloud. He could still feel that odd darkness within his heart that assured the beast still existed somewhere. Why his nemesis wasn't hounding him to the ends of the world, professing that the only way for Cloud to truly exist was to be assimilated into his own darkness, was far beyond him – perhaps the last fight they'd had, when he and Sora had come so close to pushing the beast over the edge of oblivion, had sparked a sense of self-preservation in the emerald-eyed angel? There was no way for Cloud to be certain of Sephiroth's motives or desires without asking him directly, then figuring out what the man would blather about in poetic prose and metaphors and translate those half-lies into a verifiable statement.

No, what disturbed Cloud wasn't the lack of the physical manifestation of the darkness that dwelled within him. What disturbed him was the lack of light in his life.

Tifa was always present, always brilliant and flooded with love and friendship. Aerith was always present, always brilliant with caring and devotion. Yuffie and Cid were always present, filled with friendship and understanding.

But none of those lights suited him, all being garish and harsh in his soft, darkness-swathed world.

Something within his head, within his heart, knew there was a light for him. Something hard as steel but gentle, as forlorn and shy as Cloud's own presence, gunmetal in a world of white. A light that was powerful and strong and steadfast, brilliant enough to drive off the darkness that would plague Cloud's heart, but not so bright as to blind him to himself.

He knew deep inside he'd once had such a light. He'd once been enveloped by perfection.

He simply didn't know who had been that light. He couldn't remember.

Perhaps that was why he wandered Radiant Garden every day, his journey always starting at the bailey and ending at the center of town after coursing down towards the crystal fissure and snaking through the castle itself. A search for his light rather than an instinctual need to move, to wander and perhaps to escape the overbearing brilliance of those who enveloped his waking world.

With a groan, Cloud shook his head.

"What ridiculous assumptions," he whispered more to himself than to anyone around him, those who walked through the town's square not paying attention to his inane rambling anyway. Straightening his shoulders, the blond warrior strode from the bazaar, ignoring the stands and their peddlers as he walked.

He'd intended to return to Merlin's place, having been staying at the old wizard's residence and watching it while the wily white-bearded magician was wandering through time and space. Free room and board had never been something Cloud would pass up. And when it came with the promise of a loud flower-print shirt and perhaps a bobble-headed hula-girl once the crazed elderly man returned from wherever it was he dashed off to from time to time, Cloud was always quick to accept the offer to house-sit.

Instead of arriving at the wizard's abode, he found himself before a smaller residence situated at the edge of town.

"Where…?" Cloud pondered, his eyes roving over the structure, taking in the sight of overgrown grass and untrimmed hedges. A coil of ivy snaked up a wall, gently tearing at the brick it was crafted of. Debris lay scattered over the walkway that lead to its front door.

Without knowing why he was doing what he was doing, Cloud made his way to that door. He was quite surprised when the knob turned easily in his hand.

Walking in to the lifeless house, squinting to peer through freshly stirred dust and poor lighting that seeped through time-stained windows, he cast his gaze around.

His eyes fell upon a series of framed pictures upon the mantle of the house's brick fireplace.

"Why?" he asked the air, his eyes huge as he stared at himself.

Pictures of himself, standing alongside a brunet man with gunmetal eyes and a thin scar passing over the bridge of his nose. Pictures of him with his arm around the mysterious man's waist, obviously comfortable and at ease.

Walking to the mantle, he picked up a picture featuring him and the mysterious person both leaning against the railing of one of Radiant Garden's castle's numerous balconies, a candid snapshot likely taken without their knowledge. Their fingers were intertwined lovingly, gunmetal eyes soft as they looked towards mako-infused blue orbs.

The figure of his dreams, the one he would sleep simply to dream about in the hopes of seeing its face, was finally visible to his waking eye. The one he woke without every day was right before him in a photograph.

Picture still in hand, Cloud turned to look at the dirty glass end table beside the dust-coated couch. Seeing what lay there, forgotten to the passage of time, he felt his heart sink within his chest.

A coiled necklace, resting beneath one white feather.

He wandered to the table, hand shaking as he put the picture down, careful enough to ensure it didn't fall over. Lifting the feather with one hand, he swallowed tears he didn't realize he had and had no knowledge concerning their formation away. His free fingers softly caressed the lion-head pendant upon the thick chain that rested there, wiping away time's stains and encouraging its metallic brilliance to shine through.

His heart thundering within his chest, Cloud turned mako eyes towards the ceiling. "Who are you…? Why is this here?"

"Isn't something missing?"

_-to be concluded-_

* * *

><p><em><em>A/N: As I have received a non-logged in review and it is my policy to reply to all who review my fics, I'll simply do as I said I'd do over in SotD and add it here. Soooo now to reply:

pom pom:

... (realizes that was possibly written in sarcasm and laughs outright)

(pauses)

(realizes that if that WASN'T written in sarcasm, then it's even MORE hilarious and damned near falls over with hysterical cackling, as the lack of reading comprehension that would derive such a statement would be magnificent indeed)

If you were trying to troll, please head over to memebase - they'll give you good lessons over there. :P If not, thanks for making me giggle! XD


	7. Sacrifice

Disclaimer: I don't own the FFVIII, FFVII or KH franchises. Dur hur hur.

Epilogue  
><span>Sacrifice<span>

_-BEGIN FIC-_

His feet stirred the dust.

One final shudder racking his body, his frame finally expended every last vestige of energy it had. One final step was all it took to drain him completely, his body matching his mind and his heart in its desperation for all to become empty and still. Without ceremony, he collapsed onto the hard and unforgiving ground.

He was alone.

He was eternally trapped in a land beyond time with no one curious as to where he was and how he was faring. The feathery portals had long since stopped appearing, the magic that brought them finally reaching its termination. Even his nemesis, the foe who had followed him throughout all time, had finally left him.

How long had he been there? Did it at all matter? Was there ever a measure of time in the land he was trapped in, beyond reality?

Did he at all care?

No.

Long ago, through his visions and the doldrums of knowledge he'd come to know that he was the sacrifice for peace. The darkness that haunted the radiance he'd once dwelled in had retreated, unchallenged and unfettered. Those he'd cared for, those he'd given himself for, those he'd bowed his head and accepted his fate for, had long since forgotten him.

He was not only beyond time and reality, he was beyond existence itself. His soul was fading into obscurity, unloved and insignificant.

Tired gray eyes closed as the odd realization finally completely consumed him – no one was missing him. Nothing was missing for them. He was in fact the sacrifice for peace – a peace they enjoyed so that the past, the strife and anguish they'd known before, had been lost to the bowels of time. The dark one-winged beast's plans had assured his eternity, locking away the light that could smother him in exchange for the promise of removing his presence from the land that sacrifice's friends dwelled in.

Sephiroth would never be crushed, never challenged, never destroyed. As the embodiment of Cloud Strife's darkness, he had assured his immortality by removing the light that threatened to push him out of the heart that was his creator.

A sacrifice? In vain or worthwhile? The man upon the ground had long since ceased pondering. The monster had won. His accomplice who'd locked him in time had won. And the man's friends had won – they had lives free of the one-winged angel and the witch of the future.

There was no reason for them to try to recover a sacrifice that had been purged from their memories.

Not even the one who had once so brightened the man's own light, the hope of reciprocated love keeping the man from wandering and searching for the girl with her white wings and gentle eyes in the eternity of darkness.

He would have died for the knowledge that he was loved.

Now he would die, crushed by the knowledge that he was in fact forever alone.

As a slow and final breath seeped from the man's lungs, he allowed his soul the freedom it desired, reaching for the past, stretching for the bygone days of acceptance and love among those who had been long crushed by darkness. He reached for the girl in blue.

His fading consciousness barely picked up the sound of boots scraping the ground.

As strong arms lifted his upper body to rest upon a warm lap, calloused hands brushing through his hair, he felt the stir of his heart within his breast.

"Leon," he faintly heard moments before lips lightly brushed over his own, soft wet tears that were not his own trailing over his cheeks.

As the smell of flowers wafted over his senses and the crushing embrace of the man he'd given all to save enveloped him, Leon pried his eyes open, his lips reflecting the smile that shone down upon him.

_-the end-_


End file.
